“They’re here, Admiral.” Panem’s soft voice caught Faith’s ear, brought a broken smile to her scarred and twisted lips. He gestured lightly, nervously, tried his own smile, but the look Tessa gave him in return was totally blank, emotionless. Cold, cobalt eyes flicked away, darted and lingered on the support equipment wired into the mass of bandages that hunched behind the desk. In the pause, she blinked, her gaze searching for something human, looking for something of the woman who held the rank of Admiral to focus on but finding only the pitted teeth and twisted skin of a radiation-burnt husk. Hesitating, half holding her breath, she inclined her head gently, averted her eyes.

Behind Tessa, Izzy stared on in an awestruck horror, her face falling with the fresh memory of the Admiral as she had been only the night before, the night that she had come bearing the report on the AI exploit in the Blasterchild systems. Only Phoebe and Cordova glanced up in nervous unease, swallowed and forced themselves to meet the unseeing, bandaged eyes of the twisted form before them out of a sense of respect and courtesy. Trailing in behind them, the stocky, fiery-haired woman whose flightsuit labeled her as Mondego and the wiry, rail-thin man with dark, haunted eyes who Tessa guessed could only be Beaumann hesitated and stopped short, mouths hanging open wordlessly.

“I’m sorry there aren’t enough chairs for all of you,” The Admiral managed another smile, coughed hoarsely. “And I know this is rather impractical, that my office is a little too small for this kind of thing, but please, bear with me.” One bandaged hand fumbled brokenly at the desk, tried to find purchase, shook like the frail twig of an emaciated tree as she used it to push herself into a hunched and unstable imitation of standing. She held out one arm, beckoned, but before the tensing pilots could move, before they could reach out or cross the room to catch her, Panem was at the Admiral’s side, swooping up under her arm to support her. Stretching out to her full, majestic height, she forced an air of command into her voice that recalled some of the beauty and strength that had once defined her, pulled together something of the heroic stance and tone that had inspired the men and women under her command to feats of greatness.

“Lieutenant Commander Eisenherz.” She spoke, and the words cracked the younger officers to obedient attention. Tessa blinked, watched the Admiral quietly, loosely, knowing she couldn’t see any of it, probably wouldn’t have cared even if she could.“How are your people holding up?”

“As well as can be expected.” Tessa said simply. Her eyes shifted momentarily to Panem as the Admiral gestured him away, caught his uneasy gaze for the barest fraction of a second before he broke the stare and looked away. Turning back, she added: “We’ve been through hell like everyone else.”

“I see.” Came Faith’s quiet response. One frail hand gave the hint of a gesture. “I was sorry to hear about Davidson.”

“We’ve all lost good people out here.” Tessa managed. “We’ve taken our hits, but personally, I like to think that my squadron has been lucky this time around.” She couldn’t help it– she looked away, found her eyes darting to the floor before she forced them level again, hardened her features. “We haven’t suffered anywhere near the number of losses some of the other squadrons have.”

“It’s not luck.” The Admiral gave another twisted smile. “Minerva Squadron is staffed with good people, Eisenherz. Good pilots, and a damn good leader to keep them together, if the reports and commendations attached to your file are any guide.”

Tessa inclined her head gently again, then hesitated. “Thank you, ma’am.” The Admiral nodded in quiet response, cocked her head vaguely, almost as if straining to hear some distant noise.

“Lieutenant Commander Mondego” Faith paused, waited a moment to continue. “I was sorry to hear about your people as well.”

“Yeah, me too.” The fiery haired woman’s response came brusque, tone so strong and full of iron that she hesitated, suddenly remembering herself, the etiquette drilled into the heads of raw recruits since day one of their training. “Ma’am.”

“The truth is, Eisenherz is right. We have all suffered heavy losses.” Faith’s eyeless stare dropped to the desk, hung motionless in the pause. “We’ve lost so many pilots to the Coralate that we can’t even staff six full squadrons anymore.” She glanced up, and in the twisted scarring of her face, there were no more friendly curves, no more hints of smile. Seriousness, the hard lines of concern and worry worked there in the bent landscape of skin instead, pulled changed flesh in unfamiliar directions. “Things are desperate. You’ve already been briefed on the situation, so I won’t bore you with a rehash, but in the light of recent events, I’ve decided that the best course of action is to reform our broken squadrons and put all pilots and rigs on standby in the hangar bays, ready to group up and fly in an instant if the need arises or if the ship comes under fire and must be abandoned.”

Tessa swallowed reflexively, felt Izzy shift uncomfortably beside her. A standing order to be prepared to evacuate en masse at a moment’s notice was an order that no commanding officer ever wanted to give, and even through the bandages, the scarring and the frail movements of twisted limbs, Tessa could see that the choice came out of resolve, out of strength, and not out of fear. It was not an order to run away– it was an order to retreat from the impossible odds of a handful of Seindrives against a swarm of Coralate rigs and a pair of warships.

“Mondego and Beaumann are the only surviving elements of my own Isis squadron.” The Admiral continued, offering a weak gesture. “They fly Assault rigs, and though I’m assigning them to fill your right rear and left rear positions, I’ll leave the final configuration of your squadron ultimately up to you, Eisenherz.”

“Ma’am.”

“And that brings me to Lieutenant Copperfield.” Izzy looked up, swallowed with the uncanny way the Admiral had of looking almost directly at a person, a stare close enough to make that person uncomfortable, uneasy, to make them wonder...

“I hate to do this, but desperate times require desperate measures.” Izzy tensed as the Admiral paused, shifted. “Lieutenant Izandra Copperfield, as of now, you are formally dismissed from serving under Lieutenant Commander Eisenherz as a part of Minerva Squadron.” Izzy’s mouth dropped open, worked in silent motions of shock and fear. The Admiral grinned crookedly.

“The truth is, I’ve got bigger plans for you, Lieutenant.”